WOMBBATH
“THE GREAT DESOLATION”
Album Review by Dark Juan

3/10

Wombbath are:

Håkan Stuvemark – Guitar
Jonny Pettersson – Vocals
Al Riglin – Guitar
Henrik Åberg – Drums
Johan Momqvist – Bass

I should warn you all that I am terribly, terribly hungover and this review is being brought to you by sheer bloody-mindedness, an extremely nihilistic frame of mind and hair of the dog in the form of many beers. MetalGodsTV’s resident rock icon Iron Mathew suggested I review Wombbath’s The Great Desolation after a late night conversation where we decided it would be amusing to complete the “Things To Do With Wombs (Faintly Disturbing)” trilogy of metal reviews, having previously given you people out there the benefit of my wisdom on Womb and Wombripper previously. So then, what the actual fuck is a Wombbath anyway? Is it some kind of bizarre Swedish (for this is where Wombbath are from) sex play, after they have finished beasting themselves with birch branches in the sauna, but before the mutual (if they are ladies) clitoral stimulation and morbid gloom? Is it a kind of deranged Scandinavian foodstuff, akin to digging up three month rotted and lye covered shark and stuffing your face with it? Or is it just a very silly word they have made up? Anyway, the band are composed of members whose names could give a man with a prehensile tongue difficulty so I took the liberty of copying and pasting their names for you, all accents present and correct…

The Great Desolation is Wombbath’s (is a wombbath a sensory deprivation chamber?) second record and the first with the current lineup. I’m sorry to say it’s duller than a bank holiday weekend in Great Yarmouth. As a listening experience I would say it’s akin to having your ice cream nicked by a seagull before you got to have a lick. There’s potential there but you’ll never get to experience it. This is a tremendously uninspired and bland record. It is just stale. It’s Scandi-metal in the vein of Borders And Shading era In Flames or Terminal Spirit Disease At The Gates. So, coming up for two decades out of date, then. And I fucking hate the horrible, tinny, whizzy guitar sound they have gone for. It sounds like a pedal and rip scooter being ragged around the studio. You know the kind of scooter, ridden by some fuckwit in tracksuit bottoms and at maximum revs, which just so happens to be a pitch that turns Dark Juan into a murderous ragebeast rushing out with a chainsaw to confront the little bastard and reduce him and his scooter to their component parts… I don’t like the vocals, which are metal-by-numbers grunting or screaming and no in between, I don’t like the bass, which is virtually inaudible or possessed of more buzz than a fleet of Melvins albums, I don’t like the soloing, which is not virtuoso or inspired (in fact to be fair I could have told you what the solo was going to sound like before it even got played on every single song), and I don’t like the production or the mix or the songwriting. It is all so generic it makes my heart hurt.

The problem with this band and their music is that there is no soul. The only member who sounds like he has any commitment at all is the drummer, who’s a fucking powerhouse. The guitarists just sound bored, man. The bassist doesn’t even need to be there, so negligible is his contribution to the final mix and the singer radiates an air of just doing this because he fucking can. Sure this record will garner a lot of fans because it sounds EXACTLY like Scandi-metal in every detail, but Jesus fucking Christ in a chariot driven sidecar, Wombbath, you’re all talented musicians – do something worthwhile with it and push some fucking boundaries instead of being stuck in 1997. I challenge you, the readership, to listen to this uninspiring load of twaddle and explain to me how this record is relevant in an age which gives us Rivers Of Nihil, Oceans Of Slumber, P.H.O.B.O.S., Friendship and the like. There is a world of truly spectacular and groundbreaking metal waiting to be discovered out there and this kind of faintly desperate retreading of a style of music massively past it’s sell by date just makes it that much harder for a truly original band to break through.

I was arguing (discussing!) with people about the statement Matt Tuck of Bullet For My Valentine made about metal becoming stale on the internet the other day and I was adamant that metal has never been in a better or more inventive place than right now, quoting the bands I just have above for evidence. I was passionate about it. And then I heard Wombbath. Maybe Matt Tuck is right. Maybe metal is stuck in the nineties. What a depressing experience this album is. I’m fed up now. I’m going to find that little bastard on his moped and I’m going to shove this axe so far up his noisy arse he’ll be spitting razor blades for weeks. And after I’ve staved his crust in I’m having another beer. The twat.

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is currently rounding up the members of Wombbath and releasing them in Scandinavian forests, before unleashing the black metal bands he has been starving for weeks to hunt them. Normally, I abhor blood sports but this time I will make an exception. Wombbath are awarded 3/10 for being as fucking dull as a summer day in Bradford. Look at the tracklist below. Even the song titles are the worst kind of backward metal nonsense. Teenagers will love ‘em.

TRACKLIST

Embrace Death (Yes, Wombbath, yours…)
The Great Desolation (My brain after listening to Wombbath and having my intelligence insulted so blatantly.)
Footsteps Of Armageddon (Fuck off. Word salad nonsense. Footsteps of Armageddon? What is it? An armoured Donald Trump stomping down a small American town’s Main Street firing tiny tactical nuclear weapons at Indian restaurants, Chinese takeaways and Hispanic gardeners?)
Born Of Filth (Have these guys been to Wythenshawe or Blackbird Leys?)
Punisher Of Broken Oaths (This, hilariously, gave me a mental image of a medieval Frank Castle rampaging around Towcester beheading unfaithful husbands.)
The Weakest Flesh (See above and what Frank Castle is gonna do…)
Cold Steel Salvation (Yes, the salvation you get when you are involved in a massive car accident because you were hurriedly removing the Wombbath CD and you stopped concentrating on the road…)
Hail The Obscene (These pretenders know nothing of obscenity and debauchery! I, Dark Juan, practice what I preach and I bet these people have never deflowered a virgin upon the altar of God’s church, her clitoris grinding against the beard of an effigy of Jesus with every thrust. Wasn’t bad, for a Thursday night, that.)
Harvester Of Sin (Is this an offshoot of the second rate restaurant chain? I pictured a load of depressed looking Goths eating bland food and being miserable while lift music versions of Sisters Of Mercy songs play…)

https://www.facebook.com/Wombbath

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